1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a film-forming device, a liquid material filling method thereof, a device manufacturing method, a device manufacturing apparatus, and a device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic apparatuses, for example, computers or portable information device terminals have been developed, entailing an increase use of liquid crystal display devices, in particular, color liquid crystal display devices. These kinds of liquid crystal display devices utilize a color filter in order to colorize display images.
The color filter includes a filter having a substrate and being formed by supplying R (red), G (green) and B (blue) inks on the substrate in a predetermined pattern. As methods for supplying ink to such a substrate, for example, an ink jet type film-forming device has been employed.
In case of employing an ink jet type film-forming device, the film-forming device discharges a predetermined amount of ink from an ink jet head and supplies the ink to a substrate. In this case, as an ink discharge means, means in which a plurality of nozzle openings are formed on a wall constituting an ink tank together with discharging piezoelectric elements by conforming the piezoelectric elements to the direction of their expansion/contraction to each of the nozzle openings in order to face each of the nozzle openings, has been frequently used. As this type of piezoelectric elements, a piezoelectric element in which an electrode and a piezoelectric material are alternately stacked in a sandwich shape is provided, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 63-295269. This piezoelectric element is configured such that the ink filled in a cavity (or an ink reservoir) of the ink jet head is discharged by the pressure wave caused by the deformation of the piezoelectric element.
Since there is a limitation to dischargeable ink viscosity in such an ink jet head, it is difficult to discharge a high viscosity ink. Therefore, conventionally, a technique in which an ink tank communicating with a pressure chamber via a supply opening is provided with a heater (or heat generating body) (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 5-281562) and a technique in which heaters are embedded in both an ink jet head and an ink tank (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 9-164702), are provided. By using these techniques, a high viscosity ink is changed to an ink with a dischargeable viscosity, i.e. low viscosity, thereby enabling industrial chemicals to be used, which were conventionally difficult to form into a film.
However, the following problems occur in the prior art as described above.
The above-mentioned method, which makes the viscosity low by heating, cannot be employed for ink having properties which change when heated, and cannot improve a situation in which discharging is difficult.
Further, when filling ink into an ink jet head, for example, an ink tank outside the head is connected to the head and a nozzle part of the head is evacuated by negative pressure.
However, since ink flow passages within the head are fine, bubbles may gather in portions where the flow of ink stagnates, such as in bent portions, in portions whose flow passage width varies, or in uneven portions, thereby disabling the discharge of ink. When bubbles remain within the head as above, since the pressure loss at discharging ink becomes great, a problem occurs in which not only the discharge of ink becomes unstable, but also ink cannot be evenly discharged.
The present invention has been made in consideration of the above problems. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a film-forming device, a liquid material filling method thereof, a device manufacturing method, a device manufacturing apparatus, and a device, which enable filling of ink into the head without heating the ink or leaving bubbles within flow passages even for a high-viscosity ink.